Powerful Tools for Teaching and Learning: Digital Storytelling introduces educators to digital storytelling and explores ways to use digital stories to enhance students’ learning experiences. The course is designed to be comprehensive yet fundamental. By comprehensive we mean that the course provides a solid foundation for all of the components of a digital story and illustrates these components with tutorials, example stories, and links to additional readings. The course also provides a hands-on opportunity for learners to create their own digital stories. The course is fundamental because it covers the basic process of creating a digital story starting with just a simple script and as little as one image.
This course is intended for K-12 teachers in all disciplines, although it is open to anyone with an interest in digital storytelling. Course participants will use WeVideo (https://www.wevideo.com/), a free web-based video editing program, to create a digital story that could be shared both online and with students in the classroom. Teachers in the state of Texas may be eligible to receive Continuing Professional Education units if they complete the major requirements of the course.

From the lesson

WEEK 2: Writing an Effective Script and Creating a Storyboard

In Week 2, we will focus on scriptwriting, storyboarding, and Creative Commons. We will begin by discussing the steps in developing and writing a script for the digital story you will create in this course.We will explore the basic elements of the script,such as introduction, character development, tension and resolution that are necessary in developing a script. Then, we will also examine the importance of selecting appropriate images and creating a storyboard. In Week 2, you will learn not only the functions and the sequences of a storyboard, but also the most useful ways to locate images, such as using photos taken with a digital camera and images downloaded from the internet based on the size, quality, type and usage rights. A step-by-step approach will be used to illustrate how these images can support your own script as a part of creating a digital story. By the end of this week, you will begin to understand the important steps and elements of scriptwriting, and be able to envision your story's script in a visually interesting storyboard.